Bear Robotics Interview Questions
& Process

I initially chatted with a recruiter, and after that, I moved on to talk with the hiring manager. We had a really good talk, though he did ask for all my contacts and wanted me to introduce them. He even said I was moving on and would speak to his boss. But then, after hanging up with him, I just got ghosted. I tried reaching out to the recruiter and the hiring manager several times, but no one responded. It made me wonder if they were even hiring or just after my contacts and strategy ideas.

After the interview, they didn't contact me back, which felt disrespectful. I have 9 years of experience, but they were looking for 2-3 years because it's a small company with fewer than 5 people. I wonder why they even conducted the interview if they weren't going to hire someone with my experience. It felt like they just wanted information from an experienced engineer. They asked a lot about my previous company's roles, like how KPIs were measured, how engineers were managed, and about allowances. It felt like a scam company.

So after I applied, the first thing was this assessment with 3 coding questions (2 medium, 1 hard LC) and 2 open questions about my latest project and open source stuff. The coding topics were Strings, Array, and Math. I got an email saying my results were outstanding, but that might be generic. The second thing was a phone interview with a Team Lead where we talked about my past experiences, my resume, and what I'm looking for. I got to ask some questions too. I felt like the chat went well and I was pretty stoked about this job. The Team Lead seemed cool and like someone I'd like to work with, and our values seemed to match. But, they decided not to move me forward. Not sure what I messed up, but I suspect they're after folks with way more experience for their Junior role than they listed. They mentioned "no robotics experience" in the description. The email said the process was super competitive, but they keep posting this job on LinkedIn weekly, so I think they want a very specific type of person. My best guess is they want someone who just graduated but has a ton of robotics background (maybe a Master's degree).

The interview experience was positive. I spoke with the lead of the SLAM team, who was very approachable. The interview had two main sections: a review of my resume and a series of quick questions covering various topics like control, sensors, computer vision, machine learning, SLAM, and probability. Finally, there was a design challenge where I had to conceptualize a SLAM system for a robot with limited sensing capabilities (only landmark angles) and identify the constraints needed for a solution.